Awesome Raw Onion Rings

I’ve looked all over for recipes for raw onion rings…a healthy version of the fried onion rings I used to love. I couldn’t find any that came close to creating the batter goodness and crispy texture, so I had a bit of a think and came up with my own.

Terry’s AWESOME Onion Rings!

You’ll need:

1 large onion
Sunflower seed cheese/dip
Ground Flaxseed
Ground sunflower seeds
Sea salt

To prepare…

Sunflower Seed cheese/dip:

1 cup sunflower seeds
1-2 cloves garlic
Sea salt - pinch or two
Nutritional yeast - to taste (not raw, but good!)
Enough water to get the stuff going

Put all ingredients in blender and add water as needed to keep it moving. You want the mixture to be thick. Set aside or put in fridge.

THEN…

Slice onion and separate rings. Pour the sunflower seed cheese over the rings and use your hands to make sure all the rings are covered.

Grind the flax seeds and sunflower seeds in a coffee grinder, food processor or Vita-Mix. Mix them together and add the sea salt to the mixture. Sprinkle the ground seeds over the coated onion rings until they are thoroughly covered.

Place onion rings in dehydrator and dehydrate till the onions are the texture you like. I like mine still kinda moist.

I’ve found this comes closest to the fried onion ring texture than some of the other recipes I’ve seen.

Enjoy!

Sorry, I don’t have a picture for this one…yet. Can’t say when I’ll get one up, but next time I make some, I will.

These chips have the perfect texture. Great for dipping or for nachos or whatever!

Terry’s Raw Corn Chips:

1/2 cup ground flax - soak for 15 minutes
1/2 cup whole flax seeds (no need to soak)
4 cups frozen corn, thawed
Juice of 1 lime
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp black pepper

Process corn in food processor with S blade till smooth. Stir in ground flax seed, whole flax seed, lime juice and spices. Spread on parchment paper in dehydrator and dehydrate till dry on one side, then flip over onto screen and dehydrate till crispy.

The past couple weeks I’ve really been experimenting with uncooking. I’ve mentioned before that I love (or loved?) to cook, but uncooking is a whole new thing for me.

While I’m all about keeping things simple when it comes to how we eat, I really enjoy the preparation of food, the arrangement, the tasting, and finally, sitting down to the meal for some good conversation with my family while we enjoy our food. Though we don’t always get to do that with our busy schedule, it’s nice to do it whenever we can. So preparing raw meals has become important to me.

So in learning to uncook, I’ve had some hits and I’ve had some misses and last night’s dish was a definite miss. My husband is Italian and grew up on that kind of food, so obviously pasta is a comfort food for him. I’ve very much enjoyed creating lasagnas and other pasta dishes in the past, and now I’m trying to recreate something at least a little similar. Well, lately, thanks to some garden-fresh tomatoes, I’ve been succeeding with raw lasagnas and ravioli-like dishes, but once in a while I hit a food roadblock…I tried making a pasta-like dish of zucchini with marinara and it was kinda weird. I won’t share THAT recipe till I make it a hit. Really, it was bit nasty.

I feel like I did when I first started learning to cook - learning the combination of ingredients and textures that go well together and which ones don’t. I’ll get it eventually.

I made some awesome coconut macaroons today with a little experimentation. I’m going to approximate the measurements because as is my usual method of UNcooking, I tend to add things without measuring. Oh well.

They were so fun to make and smell sooo good! Here’s the recipe:

Raw Coconut Macaroons

2 cups cashews (I didn’t soak)
10 dates - soaked 15 to 30 minutes - reserve 2-3 tbsp soak water
1-1/2 cups coconut flakes
2 tbsp lucuma powder (optional)
pinch of sea salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbsp agave nectar

Grind cashews until they have a mealy texture. Place cashews in a bowl.
Process soaked dates until they form a paste. Add to the cashews and mix.
Add the rest of the ingredients including the date soak water, 1 tbsp at a time until the dough sticks together.
Form into flattened tablespoon-sized balls (or whatever shape you like!) and dehydrate until firm yet still moist on the inside.

Enjoy!

I felt inclined to make a raw “sorta” cobbler the other day and had a dilemma…eat it right away or wait and serve it for dessert? Dessert won and it was so worth the wait.

Although not raw, I used maple syrup to sweeten the cashew cream and filling, but you could certainly use any sweetener you like - agave, honey, dates, etc.

There are three parts to the cobbler: the filling, the cream, and the crumbly topping.

Filling:

1 pint blackberries
Maple syrup (just a tad - the blackberries weren’t very sweet!)
Pinch of sea salt
Vanilla extract

Process in food processor. I used a mini processor.

Cream:

1 Cup cashews
Pinch of sea salt
Vanilla extract
Maple syrup to taste
1 tbsp coconut oil

Blend till creamy. Can put in the fridge to set.

Crumb topping:

Pecans
Flax seed
Pinch of sea salt
Dab of raw honey or chopped dates

Grind pecans and flax seed in coffee grinder. Add honey or chopped dates.

Assemble by putting the filling in a bowl, top with cashew cream and crumb topping.

Enjoy.

I absolutely LOVE to cook. And I’m an excellent cook. But as I progressed in my raw food journey, learning to UNcook has been a bit of a challenge and something I resisted. I’ve pretty much kept things simple…smoothies, salads - both green and fruit, mono meals, maybe some pico de gallo and guacamole, the occasional dehydrated treat and that’s about it.

My excuse for not doing too much UNcooking is that I’m busy. I don’t have time for all the prep work, waiting for stuff to soak, dehydrate, etc. And for the most part, that’s still true. Now I’ve learned to prepare things on my days off from my studio and get them going in the dehydrator to enjoy later.

But occasionally, I whip up something so simple and delicious. Yesterday it was this yummy carrot salad with a mayo-flavored dressing. As in my cooking, my UNcooking measurements are all done by eye and taste. Adjust amounts to suit yourself. Check it out:

So here’s how it goes. Part one is the dressing and part two is the salad. Mix them together and eat!

Dressing:

1 cup cashews
3 tbsp raw apple cider vinegar
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 clove garlic
sea salt
dash of paprika
water

Put all ingredients in blender. Add water to get it going and keep adding till you get your desired consistency. Blend till smooth.

Salad:

2 cups grated carrots
2 handfuls of red grapes, quartered or chopped
handful of chopped pecans

Toss dressing and salad together and enjoy!

After a long day at work, I’m glad I can whip something up like this for dinner. Raw, green and healthy!

I’ve never been a big fan of cooked sweet potatoes, so I wasn’t sure how much I would like them raw. But of course, I should have known better…there has never been many cooked veggies I liked, either, especially carrots and spinach, but raw - yum.

I picked up this bag and wasn’t quite sure what to do with them, then I remembered Sunshine had said her son loves sweet potato chips (and fries!) so off I went.

Find Sunshine on Twitter and rawtism.com